This invention relates to presses used to form can ends, and particularly easy-open ends. The ends are used to close food and beverage containers or cans.
Ends are formed in a press equipped with a progressive die. The die has upper and lower tooling defining a plurality of stations. Each station has appropriate punches and/or dies for forming the end. The ends are carried or indexed from station to station by a conveyor belt. The ends are held on the belt by a vacuum box. A ram carries the upper tooling in a reciprocating motion into and out of cooperative engagement with the lower tooling. Details of the press structure are shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,904,140, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The food and beverage containers on which the ends are used come in a wide variety of diameters. Naturally the ends must also be formed to match these multiple diameters. In the past, end tooling has been designed to produce only a single diameter end. If a different size end was needed, all of the tooling had to be changed to accommodate the new size. This was a time consuming operation during which, of course, no ends are produced. The down time is such that small runs of limited production sometimes could not be justified. The owner of a press would sometimes forego a small order than accept the down time needed to run a small job.
The present invention is directed to end tooling which accommodates several or multiple diameters without the need for changing all of the tooling.